


Cravings

by bea_bickerknife



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Brief mentions of sacrilege and also international art theft, Character development if you squint, F/F, Lingerie, Merry Month of Masturbation Challenge 2017, Oh right also there is masturbation, PWP if you don't squint, Probably a good thing to mention, Voyeurism (ish)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 09:42:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10964640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bea_bickerknife/pseuds/bea_bickerknife
Summary: Seven solitary days. One provocative present. Not quite the evening Georgina had planned.





	Cravings

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, I own none of the characters in this work, nor do I derive any remuneration from its posting.

It isn’t an indulgence Georgina allows herself often, but when she does, she makes sure to do it properly.

Preparation is a familiar ritual. First, she checks the front door, unsurprised yet still somehow relieved to find both the knob and the deadbolt still firmly locked. Next, she moves from room to room, switching off overhead lights and table lamps and sconces, until bit by bit the brownstone is immersed in comfortable darkness from the sitting room at the front of the first floor to the master ensuite at the back of the second. When she reaches her bedroom, she procures the heavy gold lighter from her nightstand drawer and flicks it open, shadows juddering this way and that as three dusty candles sputter to life.

 _Dust_ , she realizes with a faint smile. _It’s been a while_.

When the glow steadies and suffuses the room, she spends a few moments straightening up any hint of untidiness that might distract her attention at an inopportune moment. It borders on the neurotic – she can admit that – but neurosis seems to her like a small price to pay for focus at a time like this, and it isn’t as though there’s ever much out of place to begin with.

Satisfied that the room is sufficiently spotless, she moves to the wardrobe and unbuttons her blue shirtdress just far enough to step delicately out of it and replace it on its hanger. She decides for the moment to retain her underwear, but the bra returns to its customary place amid the rest of the no-nonsense blacks and beiges in her lingerie drawer, and she digs further back to retrieve the one garment that breaks the mold: a silk robe, bottle-green and trimmed with lace, shorter than anything she’d ordinarily try on, let alone purchase and wear.

Two tiny holes mar the sash, twin scars left by the gold safety pin she’d removed upon unwrapping it this morning. As though she hasn’t already committed the message that had been fastened there to memory, she reaches into the pocket and draws out a slip of stationery embossed with the words _Hôtel Belle Époque_ , squinting down at it in the dim light.

_G –_

_Flannel is out. Don’t argue, just enjoy._

_Yours,  
E  _  

The words slope insouciantly across the page, and Georgina traces the flourishes of the excessively elaborate _E_ with her index finger. _One more week_. _You can’t rush an art heist. Not in Paris, anyway._

Bare feet make little sound on hardwood and she crosses to the bed in near-perfect silence, save for the rustle of the note as she folds it up and tucks it away. Sinking back against the pillows, she draws her knees up slightly and notes the sensual slither of the silk as it slides up her parted legs to pool around her hips.

 _Oh, I’ll enjoy, all right_.

Seven days have passed already, and if she wants to last out the next seven without combusting from sheer want, she’s going to need to take the edge off _._

Her options are by no means limited. The bottom drawer of her nightstand offers several appealing possibilities, all equally capable of getting the job done quickly and discreetly; however, in light of the growing ache between her thighs, she suspects that not only is speed unlikely to prove problematic, but that discretion is about to become a moot point. The black steamer trunk by the foot of her bed contains a number of substantially more exotic alternatives, but nearly all of them are more gratifying when inflicted on someone else, so she settles on the simplest possible solution to the problem.

Grateful that her new manicurist has finally managed to grasp what she means by _short, neat, and rounded_ , Georgina trails her fingertips up the inside of her right thigh. It’s been a remarkably long time since she’s touched herself like this, and she finds the sensation both familiar and foreign, having grown accustomed first to the efficiency of finely-tuned vibrations and then, more recently, to the masterful caress of hands much longer and thinner than her own.

 _God, her **hands**_ , she reflects as she traces the seam of her underwear. _And those fingers_ …

Her own fingers ghost over black satin and find it decidedly dewy. The fabric should provide a barrier, dampening sensations enough to enable her to make this last, but tonight all it’s doing is reminding her of the teasing that she always objects to on principle until she is reminded – often repeatedly – of its effectiveness.

 _But she’s not here tonight_ , _and even **she** wouldn’t tease for an entire week. Probably. _ A little more pressure, a gentle circling motion, a series of tingling shivers. _Then again, sending you French lingerie probably qualifies as teasing, so go on. You’ve waited long enough. She’d want you to._

Preferring not to read too much into the warm rush that accompanies that final thought, she drapes her right leg over the side of the bed and slips her hand beneath the fabric. She’s wet, obscenely so, and for a few moments she savors the sensation of her own arousal, sinfully slippery as it coats her fingers.

When the tip of her middle finger dips into the well of moisture, a sharp intake of breath breaks the stillness.

“ _Fuck_.”

If she weren’t alone, this would be the moment when she would feel the impatient tug of underwear being pulled down her legs. Under the present circumstances, however, that job falls to her; as a result, the risk of the fabric being yanked out of shape in frustration more or less disappears, but so does the titillating possibility of watching a vehemently determined financier complete the task with her teeth.

A subtle but unmistakable hint of familiar perfume drifts up as the robe falls open. _Of **course** she tried it on_, Georgina smirks, _and knowing her and silk, this won’t be the first time someone’s gotten off on wearing it._

Between the heady scent and the headier image – _legs spread wide, head thrown back, writhing and whimpering on a canopy bed in some ritzy hotel room, oh, dear **god** … –_ she can’t hold out any longer. Her fingers may not be as elegant, but they’re long enough to reach the spot inside her that’s been throbbing for attention, and she groans aloud when they press against it.

Apparently this really is like riding a bicycle, because it takes only a few minutes to fall back into the pattern of tapping fingers and swirling thumb that she’s used since her boarding school days. No longer constrained by the tacit mores of communal living, however, her more vocal tendencies begin to take over as she closes her eyes, left hand teasing her pebbled right nipple.

It occurs to her that she’s never really bothered to _listen_ to herself when she’s engaged in this particular activity before. There’s something inexplicably decadent in letting go, in not worrying about being overheard, in voicing her arousal without an audience and focusing on the way her voice grows more insistent with the unctuous rhythm of slick fingers curling into slicker flesh.

Without thinking, she adds a little fluttering movement to the steady tapping against her inner walls. It’s a pale imitation of her lover’s technique, but an evocative one, and her body responds immediately, hips stuttering and back arching and muscles clenching low in her abdomen.

Suddenly her moans begin to form into words. “ _Oh_ my g–, mmm, _fuck_ , OH _, ohhhh_ , _Esmé, **Esmé** –_ ”

There’s a thud somewhere off to the left of her, and she assumes it’s nothing more than the headboard rocking against the wall until it’s followed by far less ambiguous sound.

“Yes, darling?”

Her heart stops.

Stepping neatly over the suitcase she’s just dropped in the doorway, never taking her eyes off the juncture of Georgina’s thighs, Esmé closes the distance between them in three high-heeled strides. She’s dressed head to toe in black, from her black lipstick to her black motorcycle jacket to her black cigarette trousers to her black leather boots, and she perches on the edge of the steamer trunk like a sensuous shadow. One raised white hand – _I’ll explain later –_ cuts off the litany of questions Georgina is preparing to ask. “Don’t you _dare_ stop on my account.”

For a moment she’s torn between arousal, confusion, and uncharacteristic shame – _that must be from the Catholic side_ – but then Esmé speaks again.

“I’ve been wanting to watch you for _ages_ , you know,” she says conspiratorially, “but I never thought you’d let me.” Slowly, agonizingly slowly, her gaze sweeps up Georgina’s body to her eyes. “ _Show me_.”

It’s somehow both a plea and a command, and it expiates all traces of shame more effectively than any confession or penance ever managed to. _No wonder you wound up an atheist,_ Georgina registers disjointedly, her fingers slipping back inside almost of their own accord. _God, just **imagine** what she could do to you in a confessional…_

As deliciously sacrilegious as that image is, no scenario her mind concocts has ever been able hold a candle to the sight of Esmé Squalor in the flesh. Her elbows rest on her knees, pointed chin cupped in her right hand as she leans forward with an expression of rapt attention, looking for all the world like the sort of student she could have been if she found George Orwell even half as interesting as his namesake. Her left hand dangles temptingly in the V formed by her legs.

“So _this_ is what you get up to when I’m not around, is it?” There’s a teasing note in her voice. “You know, I was imagining more toys, given that collection in there,” she confides, with a nod toward the nightstand. “Unless… _oh_.” A look of dawning comprehension, followed by a rakish grin. “Oh, you _naughty_ little thing, you _have_ missed me, haven’t you?”

“ _Mmm_ ,” Georgina moans in response, the combination of Esmé’s voice and her own fingers rendering coherent reply increasingly improbable.

“How long did it take?” she asks, and the term _burning curiosity_ seems more than appropriate. “How long before you gave in, _hmm_? Before you couldn’t keep your hands off what’s _mine_ to play with?”

Voicing her objection to that phrasing would be easier, Georgina thinks, if hadn’t just knocked the wind out of her like a distressingly pleasurable blow to the chest.

Luckily, Esmé never has been able to resist a guessing game. “I’m sure you were _terribly_ restrained for the first few days, weren’t you, darling?”

Georgina manages a nod.

“Mm, so was I, but then I saw that robe you’re wearing, and… _well_. It’s not as if I had much of a choice in the matter after that.” She leans closer, eyes sparkling darkly in the candlelight. “I spent the _entire_ limousine ride up the Rue de Rivoli imagining what you’d look like in it, and by the time I got to my room and put it on, I didn’t even make it to the bed. Do you want to know what happened instead?”  

Another emphatic nod.

“I got down on my knees right there in the vestibule and I leaned back against the door and I _fucked_ myself until I was _screaming_ your name, and then I moved up the timeline for the robbery, because the next time I came that hard, I wanted it to be your duvet I was ruining, not another antique Persian rug.”

The sound Georgina makes could easily imply agony rather than pleasure, but she knows that Esmé, of all people, can tell the difference.

“Yes, darling, that’s it, you’re _terribly_ close, aren’t you?” There’s a predatory look on her face now, something wolfish around the eyes, as though she’s been starving for days and and finally caught the scent of food. “God, you’re _dripping_ …”

As usual, the more Esmé talks in a situation like this, the less articulate Georgina finds herself, and she hopes that the question was intended rhetorically. It feels as if she can’t breathe, as if the tension in her abdomen and the needy pressure between her legs have somehow paralyzed everything but her fingers, and she fights to keep her eyes open as her field of vision begins to narrow, unwilling to lose the sight of Esmé transfixed by the motions of her hand. The candlelight casts half her face into shadow, and her gaunt frame seems preternaturally taut, as if perhaps Georgina’s own paralysis somehow extends to her as well; gaze never wavering, body never stirring, only her dark lips move.

“Georgina. _Show_ me.”

Maybe it’s the edge in Esmé’s voice. Maybe it’s the fact that this time, the plea has disappeared and those two words constitute nothing more and nothing less than a command, or maybe it’s the realization that she can’t bring herself to resist it, let alone resent it, but all of a sudden she’s coming and the _why_ doesn’t matter anymore. _How_ and _where_ and _when_ all fade into obscurity, leaving nothing in focus but bliss and the black-clad _who_ perched on the trunk.

That _who_ rises to her feet. For a moment Georgina wonders if she’s done something wrong, or if perhaps, curiosity sated, Esmé has simply lost interest. Instead of turning toward the door, however, she clambers onto the bed, leather on naked skin as she drapes an arm over Georgina’s waist and nestles against her still-shuddering body.    

“Next time I leave,” she murmurs as the aftershocks subside, “I'm taking you with me.”

It’s not a question, but when Georgina kisses her, an unspoken _yes_ lingers on her lips.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by a conversation with @countolafnph, and fulfills Tumblr prompts for voyeurism and lingerie.
> 
> Since it happens to be May, let's go ahead and call it Merry Month of Masturbation too.
> 
> (As if I needed an excuse.)


End file.
